Ronan Magee from Tralee, Co. Kerry attended the European Youth Chess Championships in Montenegro from September 14th-25th. He was the sole representative from Ireland this year and played in the Under-10s. There were 913 players from 45 delegations from across Europe, Russia, Israel and the former Soviet Union countries. The Irish delegation was the smallest of the 45 delegations consisting of just Ronan and myself (his mum Barbara). The largest was Russia which had 149 participants. It was rather daunting and Ronan missed all his chess friends. Every day he wished they were there as well.

Day One – Arrival

The tournament was held in Herceg Novi, Montenegro. It is very close to the border of Croatia on the coastline of the Adriatic Sea. We took the only direct flight we could find to get us to the vicinity and that turned out to be an Aer Lingus flight out of Dublin. We stayed overnight in Bewley's as the flight was 7:30 a.m. We arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia some 3 hours later at an airport high in the mountains. The view was spectacular. Unfortunately as we left the plane, Ronan collapsed on the tarmac. He was white as a sheet and sweating profusely and saying he was sick. Given his allergies I feared anaphylaxis. Attendants called the doctor and he was whisked away in an ambulance to be checked as I was made to go through immigration and meet our lift to the hotel to explain our delay. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. Fortunately everything turned out to be fine, a touch of travel sickness and one greatly relieved mum and Ronan got in the taxi to be taken to hotel.

The view down the mountainside was breathtaking. Unfortunately our driver kept trying to make calls on his mobile phone while navigating the narrow twists and turns of the road so it was anything but relaxing.

The town itself was more a small city, coastal and touristy. A bit run down though. The hotel we stayed in was circa 1970s and facilities were to match. We were initially promised 24/7 wireless connection in the hotel lobby (which we had to share with 500 other participants and their accompanying persons) but that was narrowed down to 10-12 in the morning and 8-10 at night. Even those times were completely unreliable which made things very difficult as Ronan was without an accompanying coach and had to communicate with his own coach in England on Skype over the net. We soon found a lovely internet cafe and used that most mornings to speak with him.

The city is built into the mountainside and to get anywhere you have to climb stone staircases cut into the mountain. I am happy to say that I did not collapse from a heart attack, but it was a bit touch and go at times. Despite looking forward to sunshine and heat we managed to bring the rain with us from Ireland and it rained torrentially for the first two days. As a vegetarian the food was rather grim, but meat eaters told me the meat was rather worse. It was a buffet and I had a touch of food poisoning but learned to avoid things like lettuce. They were very good about accommodating Ronan and his special diet and we were very grateful.

Our hotel was booked fully with chess delegations. Also in our hotel was the huge Russian delegation, Turkey, and most importantly, the Scottish team. Every day, an hour before games, we all had to squeeze into bendy buses that nearly asphyxiated everyone on board with the diesel fumes.

And now for the chess... The tournament hall was a large sports hall. The room was enormous but unfortunately very, very bright and hot and when the sun was shining it could be like a sauna. We were told to get Ronan a baseball cap after the first round and that seemed to cut down on the glare and he was better able to see the board without squinting. The toilets were about a 10 minute return journey from the boards and you could see many kids bouncing up and down because they were in time trouble and couldn’t afford to take the time to go to the toilets. Start time was 3pm except for final round which was 1 p.m. Everyone was allowed in the playing hall for the first 15 minutes. You then had to sit in the stands above the playing hall. There were plenty of pairs of binoculars brought out! No one was allowed in until 4:30 when only the Chiefs of Delegations are allowed back in. Being the only other Irish person there, which was fortunately me. The security was very good and the players were kept completely separate from everyone else. Unfortunately there was plenty of players talking to each other and the arbiters were quite forgiving about that.

Generally the standard of chess was exceptionally high. These were the best juniors representing their countries. There were, however, a few that needed lessons in good behaviour and sportsmanship. As an observer I saw a few examples of bullying and general bad behaviour in the under 10s. Time control was 40 moves in 90 minutes, then 30 additional minutes to end. There was a 30 second increment with each move. So games could go very long but there was a constant scramble prior to the 40 move marker.

Unfortunately, only 25 games from each round were posted on line and it appears as though they were the first 25 to finish. So that made it very difficult to prepare from one round to the next as you couldn’t see your opponent's other games unless there were some on chess base. And we didn’t have chess base. Luckily Ronan’s coach did but communications were very difficult as the draw wouldn’t go up until around 10 p.m. Montenegro time (when the internet went down) and Ronan could only talk to his coach the next morning before his game. But one thing is clear from games found on chess base. Most of Ronan's opponents have played in more tournaments than Ronan has played chess games.

There were 120 participants in the Under-10 section. Initial ranking was by FIDE rating. Those without a FIDE rating were then ranked alphabetically after the ones with ratings. That put Ronan in the middle at seed 69. It also meant his first round was against the number 10 seed, a Romanian with a rating of 1893

R1 (0/1)

Ronan was paired with the number 10 seed (1893) for his first game. He was the top Romanian seed. Ronan played black. The game was very close and went on for well over 4.5 hours.
It was a very tough game and very close until the end game when my opponent was able to promote before me and I lost.

R2 (1/2)

Ronan was paired with a local Montenegro boy, Danilo Tosic. Ronan played white.
I won two pieces for a rook, then I picked his pawns off and won another rook and he resigned.

R3 (2/3)

Ronan was paired with the 20th seed (1790), Dorde Arsic. A Serbian who was also the European Youth Blitz Champion. Ronan played black. Prior to the game the arbiter who was also Serbian told me that Ronan's opponent was very good and said that Ronan should not be upset (if he lost).
We traded off all our pieces, I repeated a couple of moves to make it to my 40 moves and then I picked off all his pawns and then he resigned.

R4 (3/4)
Ronan was paired with Gasimov Chingiz from Azerbaijan whose father is an IM and whose older brother is also playing in the tournament. He is also European Schoolboys Chess Champion. Ronan was white. His opponent offered him a draw twice.
I controlled the only open file on the board. Then I penetrated down and picked off all his pawns. My opponent didn't give in so easily though. For a moment I thought he was going to get a draw but he didn't.

R5 (3/5)

This was a bad day. Ronan played white again against the 15th seed (1832) Mark Emdin, Russian. Ronan was playing a new opening as white that had only learned a couple hours prior to the game. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one that his opponent knew very very well. Ronan made one mistake in the opening and it turned out to be his downfall.

From the beginning Ronan's opponent did things like make faces at him, play 1 second moves and then put his head down on his arms at the table and pretend to snore while Ronan took his turn. Everything he could do to intimidate and distract Ronan. He would get up talk to his friends and fellow Russian team-mates every two minutes with a big sigh and point and laugh at Ronan while standing at the table with them. Ronan appeared to be unphased but at this point I was in the stands observing and Ronan's back was to me so I couldn't tell. When his opponent stood there laughing at him with his friend and pointing at him I decided to go down and talk to the arbiter to get it stopped. It was then I discovered how upset Ronan really was. He had missed a trap in the opening and couldn't find a way out of it. It was soon over and Ronan lost. But the entire experience was very upsetting for him.

Luckily that night (Friday) the Scottish team who were also in our hotel officially adopted us. I call them our knights in shining armour. They called us over to their corner in the bar and cheered Ronan right up. Over the next week they went over his games with him, played umpteen games of swap and blitz chess and gave him help preparing for his games. They are a lovely bunch of people (players, coaches and parents) and we are ever so grateful to them for taking us in.

Saturday was the free day. We spent the day walking along the promenade and picking up souvenirs and Ronan tried to put the bad experience of yesterday behind him.

R6 (4/6)

5th Seed (1955) Jakub Pulpan, Czech. Round 6 was a very tough game against Jakub Pulpan (1955) from Czechoslovakia who had only played on top 5 boards to this point.
It was a very long, 4 hour game but he made a blunder that let me win a piece and I won in the end. It was very exciting to play him.

Pulpan, Jakub—Magee, Ronan

R7 (5/7)

7th Seed (1939) Evgeny Lushnikov, Russian (Board 9)
I was playing a Russian called Evgeny Lushnikov. It was a very tough game but I pulled it out and won by winning the exchange. It was still a close game.

R8 (6/8)

14th Seed (1832), Alexander Donchenko, German (Board 9). Ronan’s performance rating after round 8 was 1999.
I won this game by outplaying him in the endgame

R9 (6/9)

3rd Seed (2036), Kende Antal Tibor, Hungarian. (Board 4) Kende was 10th in the Worlds U-10 last year and 7th in the Europeans. Ronan was playing for outright 3rd place in this game so it was very tense. The game went for well over 4 hours.
Kende was the third seed and in this game outplayed me. It was very close though.

Ronan finished joint 4th on 6 out of 9 points. After tie-breaks he came in at 19th out of 120 participants. Out of 9 games Ronan played 7 rated opponents. His rating performance for the tournament was 1947, the 7th highest rating performance in the U-10s. There were 30 Russians in the U-10s. Only one finished higher than Ronan and that was only by .5 point. Most countries had large delegations with many accompanying coaches, most of them GMs. Teams went out and bought wireless routers for their own use.

We’d like to thank:

• Ronan’s coach, Trevor Norton, for working so hard to help Ronan in difficult circumstances at the tournament and for all the countless hours he spent helping Ronan to prepare before the tournament.
• John McKenna for helping get me organized and not ending up institutionalized from my barrage of emails.
• Eamon Keogh
• Karl McPhilips for a last minute offer of assistance to Ronan before game 9 (which due to communications difficulties we didn’t receive until he started playing round 9)
• The kind and very generous corporate and private sponsors that made it possible for Ronan to attend the Europeans in the first place.
• The Scottish team for their much needed moral and practical support. We will have a grand time at the Glorney next year in Scotland. I guarantee you.